Roland TR-808
More info
- Creator
- Roland
- Released
- 1980
- Type
- Analog drum machine
- Successor
- TR-909
The drum machine that was meant to sound like drums, failed, and ended up as the sound of hip-hop, electro and trap instead.
Roland released the TR-808 Rhythm Composer in 1980, the same year Linn's LM-1 arrived with sampled real drums. Next to it, the 808's analog voices sounded like toys: a kick that was a damped sine wave, a snare made of white noise, a cymbal built from six square waves. Patterns were entered on a step sequencer with sixteen lit buttons. Sales were lukewarm and production ended in 1983 — according to Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi, because the supply of faulty transistors that gave the cymbals their sizzle ran out.
Used units got cheap, and cheap instruments end up with people who have no budget. Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" and Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" both came out in 1982. The kick, stretched to a long decay, has since become a bassline of its own — in trap it is simply called "the 808".